"Allow M. Alexandre Dumas access to General Gérard." I presented the paper in one hand and a pen in the other to General La Fayette, and he signed it. I had got my order. "Thanks, general," I said. And, as the passport was in my writing, I added after the two words "General Gérard" the phrase, "To whom we recommend the proposition he has just communicated to us." Furnished with this pass, I at once went to Laffitte's hotel and gained access to the general. He had seen me at M. Collard's when I was a child, and recognised me when I gave him my name. "Ah! so it is you, Monsieur Dumas!" he said. "Well, what is this proposition?" "This is it, general.... M. de La Fayette said in my hearing a few minutes ago, at the Hôtel de Ville, that he was short of powder, and that, in the event of Charles X. returning to Paris, there would probably not be four thousand rounds of shot left." "It is a fact, and, as you will recognise, a sufficiently disquieting one." "Well, I offered General La Fayette to go and obtain some powder." "Wherefrom?" "Soissons." "How are you going to get hold of it?" "How? Why, there are not two ways of taking things, surely? I shall ask politely for it, to be sure." "From whom?" "The commanding officer, of course." "And suppose he refuses?" "I shall take it without his leave." "I have been waiting for that.... Once more tell me how you are going to take it?" "Oh! that is my affair!" "Is that the proposition recommended to me by General La Fayette?" "You see it for yourself, the sentence reads clearly enough: 'To General Gérard, to whom we recommend the proposition he has just communicated to us.'" "Did he not think your suggestion a mad one?" "I must say, to be quite truthful, that we had just a little discussion about it." "Did he not tell you that there are twenty chances to one that you will be shot in such an undertaking?" "I fancy he did express some such opinion." "In spite of that, he still recommended your proposal to me." I succeeded in convincing him. "Why did he not himself issue the order you come to ask of me?" "Because he maintained, general, that orders to be given to the military authorities are your business, and not his." General Gérard bit his lips. "Hum!" he exclaimed. "Well, general?" "Well, I say it is impossible!" "Why so?" "I cannot compromise myself so far as to issue such an order." I looked him straight in the face. "Why not, general?" I said. "I am willing enough to compromise myself to the extent of carrying it out!" The general shuddered and stared at me in return. "No, no!" he said, "I cannot.... Apply to the Provisional Government."